We fished Silver Creek because it’s required, like going to Wrigley Field if you like baseball. Going to Wrigley doesn’t mean that you like the Cubs: Who likes the Cubs? It doesn’t even mean you like Wrigley. It’s a dump full of drunk Cubs fans, hard tiny seats, obstructed views, cold cold wind off Lake Michigan, and was once the home of the Federal League Chicago Whales. The Whales. The Chicago Whales. Still, it is a baseball shrine, and later I always find ways to work into conversations that I went to Wrigley last time I was in Chicago.
It’s a burden to place on a small river, and it’s a slip of a river, only 12 miles long from the originating springs. It’s a mineral and bug-rich high desert river that supports populations of wild browns and rainbows and 150 species of birds. It’s not quite clear as glass and not quite smooth as glass, but it’s clear and smooth enough for the description to work, even when it’s overworked.
We fished the Silver Creek Preserve in the morning, owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy, and later in the day fished private Silver Creek water accessed by our guides, Picabo Angler. Where we fished in the Preserve the river wasn’t much more than 100 feet across. Deeper portions are fished with float tubes, but it was late September and for us Houstonians the weather was cold beyond imagining. We stayed shallow and waded until the arctic wind drove us off the creek for lunch. I swear it was colder than 60°. Brutal.
By my lights Silver Creek is bigger than a creek, smaller than a river, honestly more like a bayou, a really clear bayou without alligators and mud, and with lots of trout and lots of bugs. Silver Bayou just doesn’t have the ring of Silver Creek, though just about every state seems to have a Silver Creek this or a Silver Creek that: Silver Creek Apartments, Ranch at Silver Creek subdivision, Silver Creek Industries, or just plain ol’ Silver Creek with some water in it. There are two, count ’em two, Silver Creeks in Idaho. There’s still only one Silver Creek. Even in Idaho.
Our particular Picabo Angler guide was Rob Curran, who also practices law in Ketchum, about 45 miles from Silver Creek. We didn’t discuss legal nuances much, just enough to get a notion of Rob’s practice. We talked more about Rob’s avocations: paragliding, mountaineering, fly fishing, ultra-marathon running, going to Baja for a month to chase rooster fish, all the usual stuff that one does. Sometimes Rob runs races where he runs up a mountain then jumps off on a paraglider, then does it again. Go figure.
There seem to be plenty of young, attractive, fit folk like Rob in Idaho, male and female, who have traded the muggle life back home for the wizarding Northwest outdoors life. Rob in fact seemed more grounded than most, balancing a law practice with all that other stuff, but they mostly scrabble together a life that makes me feel soft and paunchy and hidebound, which I guess I am, and old, which I guess I also am. But I’m also happy that way, and I doubt that at this late date anyone would hire me to guide fly fishers or work on their ski lift. If I tried paragliding I’d likely do injury to myself and others, not to mention giving my cardiologist a heart attack. And I like running my three miles every other day on the flat track around Rice, where there isn’t a single incline, unless you count the curb.
On the flight from Houston to Boise I finished Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which when published in 1980 won the Pen/Faulkner award and was a Pulitzer finalist. I had first heard of Robinson when she published her second novel, Gilead, in 2004, twenty-four years after Housekeeping. Gilead won the Pulitzer, and is brilliant, but Housekeeping is even better. There isn’t a long list of Idaho writers, but any state should be proud to call Robinson their child, and Housekeeping must be the only great novel set in Idaho. Spoiler alert: it’s also the perfect Idaho novel. Ruthie, the child-narrator, gives up her attempts at common domesticity to become a fishing guide. Ok, not really, but close enough.
As for Silver Creek, it’s become a test of fly fishing prowess. Its clarity makes it difficult and its ties to Ernest Hemingway make it legendary–it’s Ernest’s last fishing ground and son Jack is generally credited with its preservation by the Nature Conservancy. It’s a delicate dry fly kingdom too, and in these decadent days of euro-nymphing and bobbers and droppers and whatnot that makes it special. We were there for the fall baetis and calibaetis hatch, tiny blue wing green olive mayflies and slightly less tiny blue wing green olive mayflies, but Silver Creek is most famous for early-June brown drakes, when anglers line the creek for combat fishing. We pretty much had the creek to ourselves.
Once you get off the bank and into the creek, it’s easy to wade. There are heavy river bottom weeds, but open paths of hard sand and small gravel snake through. There always seemed to be a path to where I wanted to go. I fished a 3 wt., which Rob said was about right, and Kris fished her Helios III 5 wt. We had 5X leaders, tied from a formula I cadged off of Troutbitten, though I think Kris traded hers for something less cranky. My leaders ended up closer to ten feet than nine, but when I was paying attention they turned over well enough for me, and the brown Maxima leader in the butt made them easy to watch on the water.
Was I good enough angler to fish Silver Creek? Well of course I was. Sort of. I caught fish. Lots of fish, probably 20 fish. All of them but the one rainbow I foul-hooked were circa five inches. I am the master of Silver Creek tiny browns, bright and perfect as bluegills and just as gullible. I couldn’t keep them off my baetis. Kris probably caught bigger and more fish than me. I know she caught plenty. I know she was happy.
But what the heck. I watched a lot of fish, many bigger fish, and I believed in the creek as a special place, a shrine. Clear and smooth as glass, rich with bugs, rich with fish, it’s a place that you could happily fish a season or two or ten and still learn, and that you could still happily or greedily or maybe just obsessively return to. It’s better than Wrigley, and I’m guessing there aren’t any Cubs fans. It’s just that close to perfect.
